Emasculate – Meaning, Definition, Synonyms and Antonyms
Emasculate is a verb in English. It means to make someone seem less forceful, less confident, or less powerful—often by taking away their influence, status, or effectiveness.
Meaning:
Emasculate someone means to strip away their sense of masculinity or male identity, often causing a reduction of their strength or influence. In everyday writing, it is also used metaphorically to describe actions that weaken confidence, undermine authority, or leave someone feeling ineffective.
The verb can also refer to the literal physical act of castration in males, though this sense is far less common in modern general conversation.
Definition:
In practice, emasculate shows up in two related ways:
- Social or emotional: challenging someone’s power, authority, or self-esteem through humiliation, control, or constant undermining.
- Figurative: weakening or crippling the effect of something—like a policy, argument, or system—so it loses strength and usefulness.
For a closely related idea of becoming powerless, you may also find impotence meaning, definition, synonyms and antonyms helpful.
Example Sentences:
- The king was emasculated by the usurper, who stripped him of authority.
- After repeated criticism at work, his confidence was emasculated and he stopped speaking up.
- The new rules emasculated the union’s power, leaving little room to negotiate.
- He felt emasculated by his inability to meet the team’s expectations.
- Constant interruptions emasculated her impact during the meeting.
- The proposal was rewritten so many times that it no longer had teeth and effectively emasculated the original plan.
Emasculate Synonyms:
Emasculate Antonyms:
- Empower
- Strengthen
- Invigorate
- Fortify
- Enhance
- Support
- Uplift
- Reinforce
- Enable
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